Cavemen: The Quest for Fire Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• The Parts of a Card
• Object
• Open Information
• The Card Pool
• The Conch
• Tribes
  • Ability Scores
  • Resources
• Setup
• Turn Phases
  • 1. Draw Phase
  • 2. Conch Phase
  • 3. Feed Phase
  • 4. Action Phase
    • Recruit a Caveman
    • Explore for a New Cave
    • Hunt a Beast
    • Invent an Invention
    • Forage for Food
  • 5. Discard Phase
• Reaching the End of the Deck
• Winning the Game

Components

• 1 game deck with 86 cards of four types:
  • 30 Cavemen
    • 10 Hunters
    • 10 Thinkers
    • 5 Elders
    • 5 Explorers
  • 27 Beasts
  • 21 Inventions
  • 8 Cave Cards
• 20 starting cards, consisting of 4 cards for each of the 5 colored tribes:
  • 5 Tribal Leaders
  • 5 Hunters
  • 5 Home Caves
  • 5 Rules Summary cards
• 32 small Food tokens worth 1 Food each
• 10 large Food tokens worth 5 Food each
• 30 small Tooth tokens worth 1 Tooth each
• 7 large Tooth tokens worth 5 Teeth each
• 1 conch token

The Parts of a Card

1. Card Type Icon: Indicates whether the card is a Hunter Caveman, Thinker Caveman, Explorer Caveman, Elder Caveman, Invention, Beast, or Cave.
2. Stone Marker: 1 to 5 stones used when drawing for Casualties.
3. Cost: The number of Food or Teeth a player must spend to acquire a Caveman or Cave, or the minimum score required to Hunt a Beast or Invent an Invention.
4. Invention Text: Describes the permanent benefit conferred by this Invention.
5. Name: The name of this card.
6. Hunting Score: Indicates the amount this Caveman contributes to the maximum size of a Beast that the Tribe is able to Hunt.
7. Inventing Score: Indicates the amount this Caveman contributes to the maximum difficulty of an Invention that the Tribe is able to Invent.
8. Foraging Score: Indicates the amount this Caveman contributes to the ability of the Tribe to forage for food.
9. Population Score: Indicates the maximum number of Cavemen a player can have in his Tribe.
10. Exploration Ability Icon: Indicates that the Explorer allows the player to acquire new Caves for no cost.

Object

The object of the game is to invent Fire. To do this, a player needs need to have control of the Conch and an inventing score at least equal to the cost of Fire, which depends on the number of players (see Winning the Game, below).

Open Information

In Cavemen, cards are drafted from the common Card Pool and are placed face-up in front of a player in his tableau. Players must also keep their resources open to the other players.

The Card Pool

Each turn, players draw cards from the deck to fill a common Card Pool. Players take actions based on what is available in the pool. For example, after a Beast is added to the Card Pool, a player can hunt it on his turn to gain Food and/or Teeth.

The Conch

If a player holds the Conch during the Action Phase, he benefits by taking his Action first and taking a second Action after everyone else has acted once. Players can bid Teeth to take control of the Conch from another player. This can be important to get the first pick of the cards in the Card Pool.

Tribes

Ability Scores

A player's tribe has four ability scores: Hunting, Inventing, Foraging and Population. They are determined by totaling the scores shown on along the left edge of the player's Caveman and Cave cards. Inventions often modify these ability scores if certain conditions are fulfilled.

Exploration is an ability with no score. It is granted by having an Explorer Caveman. If a player has this ability, he may acquire Caves for no cost (see Explore for a New Cave, below).

Resources

Players have two kinds of resources to manage: Food and Teeth. Players spend Food each turn in order to keep their Tribes from starving. Teeth indicate prestige among the tribes. Players use Teeth to bid for the Conch and to acquire Cavemen and Caves.

Setup

Each player chooses one of the 5 Tribes (based on color) and takes the corresponding Home Cave, Leader, and Hunter cards and places them face up on the table near him to create his starting tableau. Place unused starting cards back in the box. The players collect the appropriate number of starting Food and Teeth tokens as shown on the table below.

Players	Starting Food	Starting Teeth
2	9	4
3	8	4
4	7	4
5	7	4

Shuffle the deck and draw a card. If its stone marker matches that on any player's starting Hunter, then that player takes the Conch. If it does not match any player's starting Hunter, continue to draw cards until a match is found. Then reshuffle these cards back into the deck.

Turn Phases

1. Draw Phase

On the first turn, draw 1 card per player plus 5 more and place them into the center of the table to start the Card Pool.

On turns after the first, draw 1 card per player plus 2 more to refill it.

2. Conch Phase

For the first turn, the starting Conch-holder has been determined randomly during setup. On subsequent turns, the Conch-holder passes the Conch to his left neighbor. Then, starting with the Conch-holder and proceeding clockwise round the table, players may either bid Teeth or pass. Non-passing bids must always be greater than the previous high bid. If a player passes, he may choose to bid again if the bidding comes back to him. Bidding continues until all opponents pass on the high bid. If all players pass, the Conch-holder keeps the Conch. Otherwise, the winning bidder pays the number of Teeth he bid and takes the Conch Token.

3. Feed Phase

The Conch-holder pays 1 Food per Caveman in his Tribe, including his Tribe's Leader. All other players pay just 1 Food, regardless of how many Cavemen they have. If a player cannot feed his tribe, it suffers Starvation. In this case, the player pays no Food, but instead chooses one of his Cavemen (other than the Leader) and discards it. If a player has only a Leader and no Food, nothing happens.

4. Action Phase

Starting with the Conch-holder and proceeding clockwise, each player must perform one of the 5 possible actions: Recruit, Hunt, Invent, Forage or Explore.

After each player has performed an action, the Conch-holder takes a second action at the end of the Action Phase, and so goes both first and last.

Recruit a Caveman

If a Caveman card is in the Card Pool, the player may choose to recruit him or her. He pays either the number of Food or the number of Teeth shown in the upper-right hand corner of the card, takes the card from the Card Pool and puts it face up in his tableau. This Caveman is now part of the player's Tribe and contributes his or her Ability Scores to the Tribe's totals. The player may not combine Teeth and Food to acquire a Caveman.

A Tribe may only have as many total Cavemen as its Population score. If a player is at his maximum, he may choose to discard one of his Cavemen (other than his Leader) and replace it with the newly recruited one. This may only be done if the player is at his maximum, and the new Caveman's cost must be paid as normal.

Explore for a New Cave

If a Cave card is in the Card Pool, the player may choose to Explore for it. If the player has an Explorer in his Tribe, he may take the Cave for no cost. Otherwise, he pays the number of Teeth shown, takes the card from the card pool, and puts it face up in his tableau. The population score for this Cave is added to his Tribe's total.

Hunt a Beast

If there is a Beast in the Card Pool with a Hunting cost that is less than or equal to the player's Hunting score, he may choose to Hunt it. The player discards the Beast and collects the indicated number of Teeth and Food. Then, he draws for Casualties.

To draw for Casualties, draw the top card from the deck. If its Stone Marker matches that on any of the player's Caveman cards, he discards one of his Cavemen. The discarded Caveman need not be one of those that matched. A player may never discard his Leader. When a player discards a starting Hunter, he places it in the box and not in the Discard Pile so that it does not get shuffled into the deck later on.

If a player draws Fire when drawing for Casualties he puts it aside, draws another card for Casualties, and then shuffles Fire back into the deck.

Invent an Invention

If there is an Invention in the Card Pool with an Inventing cost that is less than or equal to the player's Tribe's Inventing score, he may choose to Invent it. The player takes the Invention card from the Card Pool and places it in his tableau. He permanently gains the advantage described on the card.

Fire is a special Invention, and Inventing it means the player wins the game. Only the Conch-holder may Invent Fire, and its cost depends on the number of players: 10 in a 2-player game, 9 in a 3-player game, and 7 in a 4- or 5-player game.

Forage for Food

A player may always choose to Forage, regardless of which cards are in the Card Pool. If a player does this, he collects 1 Food per point of his Tribe's Forage score. He takes no card from the Card Pool.

5. Discard Phase

During the Discard Phase, the player to the Conch-holder's right selects and discards cards from the Card Pool until 3 cards remain.

If Fire is in the Card Pool, players must reshuffle it back into the deck before choosing and discarding other cards as necessary. However, when the deck is exhausted, Fire is locked into play and may not be discarded (see below).

Reaching the End of the Deck

When the last card is drawn from the deck, reshuffle the Discard Pile to continue play. When this happens, Fire is locked into play and may not be discarded for the remainder of the game.

Winning the Game

When a player invents Fire, he immediately wins the game. Only the Conch-holder may Invent Fire, and only if his Inventing score is greater than or equal to Fire's cost, which depends on the number of players, as shown below.

Players	Fire Cost
2	10
3	9
4	7
5	7